Question: What is the nature and purpose of the soul?

Sri Chinmoy: Each soul is a direct representative of God. God is one, yet He wants to experience Himself or enjoy Himself divinely and supremely in infinite forms. When we enter into the world, we aspire in order to realise the Highest. There are many worlds, but God-discovery or Self-discovery can take place only here on earth. In order to reach the Highest, the Absolute, we have to come here, to Mother Earth. The soul, the inner bird, comes here in order to fulfil the promise that it has made to the Absolute in the highest plane of consciousness — let us say, in Heaven. Each soul has to manifest the Light here on earth in a specific way. Nature is the field. A farmer needs a field in order to cultivate. So the soul comes to Mother Earth and cultivates Light, Peace, Bliss and Delight in the physical manifestation. The soul is like a divine farmer. The body is a field, the vital is a field, the mind is a field and the heart is a field. In each field the divine farmer cultivates, and from each field he expects a bumper crop of realisation. When the body-consciousness or the body as a field becomes fertile, and when the vital, the mind and the heart become fertile, the soul fulfils its promise to God and manifests divinity on earth. It is through the revelation of the soul's Light that the Transcendental Supreme becomes manifested. So the soul and nature go together. One is the divine farmer, and the other is the ground for cultivation.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Fifty Freedom-Boats to One Golden Shore, part 4, Agni Press, 1974
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